Living in the Spirit
June 27, 2023
Scripture Reading: Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed’;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
The pain of feeling forgotten runs deep. My church has a list of homebound people with whom we try to remain in contact. Busy lives interfere at times, and our best intentions sometimes end up sending that card or making that call tomorrow. Too often, tomorrow gets bypassed also. The other side of maintaining contact involves those for whom short-term memory is slipping away. I was walking down the hall to my mother’s room in the nursing facility where she lived when I met my sister a few doors away from Mom’s room which she had just left. We greeted each other and exchanged a couple of comments, but she was on her lunch break and had to hurry back to her job. I walked down the hall and turned into Mom’s room, where she greeted me, saying, “I am so glad you came I have not seen anyone for days.”
I sense that God is always alert and available, unlike humans. Feeling God’s absence most likely indicates that we are the one who has become estranged. Life can be hard. Often solutions and responses are difficult to achieve, particularly as quickly as we want to make things right. I think that having to sit for a while during those hard times teaches lessons from which we benefit. And so, the Psalmist did contemplate their situation and returned to trust in God’s steadfast love. We, too, can trust in God’s steadfast love.
Prayer:
Day by day, dear Lord,
of thee three things I pray;
to see thee more clearly,
to love thee more dearly,
to follow thee more nearly,
day by day*. Amen.
The song Day by Day, Author (attributed to): Richard of Chichester, see at https://hymnary.org/text/day_by_day_dear_lord
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.